In the preparation of electroless copper catalysts, palladium serves as the nucleating center to trigger the chemical deposition. In this study PdCl2 was impregnated on gamma-Al2O3 to get four precursors which possessed various palladium loadings (0.08 similar to 0.33wt%). Subsequently, two electroless copper plating bath volumes (800cc and 1200cc) were applied to get eight catalysts with different copper loadings (5.45 similar to 27.27 wt%). The distributions of copper and palladium were analyzed by the volumetric chemisorption method. CO and H-2 were used to measure the dispersion of palladium. N2O and NH3 were used to measure the copper surface area and the acidity of catalysts, respectively. Ethanol dehydrogenation was adopted as a model reaction to characterize the activity of electroless copper catalysts, The experimental results showed that copper loadings increased linearly with palladium loadings in a specific plating bath volume, which was indicative of an intimate relationship between the dispersed palladium and the electrolessly-plated copper. The maximums of copper surface areas were observed when copper loadings appeared in the range of 13.67wt% to 15.8wt%, The conversions of ethanol slightly depended upon copper loadings. Ethanol dehydrogenation over electroless plated copper catalysts might be a structure-sensitive reaction.